Three's Company

Let's take a look at color schemes combining three colors from the wheel. First off there is the triadic color scheme; using this theory you take 3 colors that are equal distances apart on the color wheel and combine them in the space.

The living room below is so ecelectic, it features the 3 primary colors and I really love it! The room is bold and artistic, it's a melting pot of many styles but it works well; and you gotta love the classic Eames Lounge Chair by Herman Miller featured in the space. I hope you'll forgive me that the blue in the room is not a really a primary colored blue, but I couldn't pass the opportunity to share this space with you.

Below is a bedroom that also borrowed from the color wheel's triadic theory for it's scheme, using primary colors as well.

Finally there is the split-complementary color scheme which takes one color, and the colors on both sides of it's complement.

This cozy little hide away below uses red, yellow-green, and blue-green in it's split complmentary scheme.

We are fam i ly...

The next two color theories we'll look at will deal with color "families", they are analogous and monochromatic schemes. Analogous colors are those which are next to each on the color wheel. A good way to identify an analogous color scheme is take one color and look at each of the colors on both sides of it. While monochromatic schemes are created when one color is used in various tints and shades. Just as before looking at this diagram should help make things a little clearer.



Now on to my favorite part...room examples! Although the two rooms shown below are very similar in color, they display two different analogous schemes.

The room pictured above has a color scheme based on violet as the middle color flanked by blue-violet and red-violet.

In my opinion the room below is a color scheme of red-violet flanked by red and violet, because there is no blue in this room.

I could go on and on finding pretty pictures so I'll move on to monochromatic.

I think a lot of people hear monochromatic and think neutral colors so I went the total opposite way and choose rooms full of COLOR to display monochromatic color schemes.

I can't decide if the image below is a blue or a blue-green monochromatic palette, I keep referring back to my color wheel and I'm leaning towards blue-green, what do you think?

The next two images I really had fun with finding. I wanted to display how easily going from one monochromatic scheme do the next could alter the way a room looks and the colors used in the room.

Below we have a room that has a monochromatic scheme built on yellow-orange (top) and one built on orange (bottom) TOTALLY DIFFERENT!

They also look different because the rooms vary in style, but there is no denying that the color difference is dramatic from one to the next.

Ahhh the joy of color.

If you still hadn't found a combination of colors that you like...don't fret, I'll post about another theory tomorrow.

Catch ya'll later!